“Big data” is a technology catch-phrase which has recently become popular. It is used to describe the explosive growth in the "data" gathered by the computer-based systems including social networks, corporate systems and government computers. As it pertains to Social Networks/ Social Commerce, Big Data includes every photo you ever uploaded to your Facebook account, every tweet you sent, every sta
tus change you posted on LinkedIn, every video uploaded to YouTube, and/or every call you made through Skype. In many cases, this information is further enhanced by location -- where the user is using a location-enabled device, such as a Smartphone with GPS. And that’s just for starters – this information can then be combined with available location data, such as street addresses, phone books, business listings, etc. Think of how much information you alone have uploaded; then multiply it by a hundred million times to cover every person in the world. As you might imagine, contextualizing this information is an enormous challenge – fortunately, there are many innovative tools and techniques which allow businesses and governments to analyze and make sense of the big data and use it for their benefit. The ability to mine big data will be a boon to Social and Mobile Commerce. Armed with so much data, companies will finally be able to serve advertisements and offers which are precisely targeted to you based not only on your age, gender, education, relationship status and where you live, but also your precise physical location at that time, and what your friends just bought. They can catch trends earlier and better serve their consumers’ wants and needs.
